Advertisement
Published: November 10th 2008
Edit Blog Post
The trip left quite early so we grabbed some breakfast and packed our rucksack for the day. When we arrived at the office of the Glacier Guiding Company we had to queue at various points to collect waterproof trousers, coats, boots, socks, hats and gloves. By the time we were dressed up we all looked the same and we had difficulty moving comfortably as we were so wrapped up!
A coach took us to the glacier car park and we set off on the public footpath for the first few minutes before turning into the forest and walking on a private path.. It was pouring down (we had wondered when we first got up if the trip would run but were told that the trip always runs!) so we were pleased to be kitted out in waterproofs.
The track came out along a wide, boulder strewn, river bed. We later found out that the glacier used to take up this space in the valley, but it had been receding gradually over the last few decades (although in the last few years it has been moving forward again). When the rain gets very heavy the river bed fills right up
with fast flowing water, but today’s rain wasn’t heavy by normal standards so it was fine to walk along.
Although we could see the face of the glacier nearby, we found out it was actually 2km away so took a while to get to as the boulders became much bigger the closer we got.
It looked like snow had been poured into the middle of the mountains and the part we could see was the tumbling overflow that travelled down through the valley. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but I suppose I thought it would be more like a sheer cliff of ice rather than what looked like a gentle incline (although looks can be deceiving when you aren’t up close!)
We were told that the glacier was shaped like a frying pan, with a circular frozen lake called the neve, and a handle sticking out down the valley. The part we could see (and were about to climb) was the handle.
As we reached the base of the ice we put on our crampons and split off into two groups. Matt went with one, I went with the other. The initial approach
was up a track made with loose rocks and stones. It was quite slippery in the rain. It wasn’t long before we reached the actual ice. Staff had spent the morning cutting out steps for us to walk up in the steeper places but our guide still had to recut them with his ice pick as they were quickly covered over again with more ice. Our first ascent onto the ice was up a set of steep ice steps. We had the assistance of a rope to help pull us up and I needed it as I‘ve only got short legs and Matt wasn‘t around to help push me up. It was hard work, especially as I was wearing our rucksack full of bottled water and food. Between the blocks of steps we had to walk up and along the ice, using our crampons to get a good grip. I was surprised at how high up we were, and how easy it would be to get hurt as we weren’t attached to anything.
We went through large gaps in the ice, and even pulled ourselves up one at a time through a small hole in the ice. It felt
like we’d climbed so far up the glacier but later we saw we’d barely even scratched the surface.
As the mornings climb went on, we got colder and wetter. Our woollen mittens were drenched, our coats and trousers were shiny with water and our noses were running (nice!). The guide from my group started us all off dreaming about hot chocolates which was cruel as we were a long way off from that.
At one point we stopped for a five minute breather and a snack to keep up our energy. I didn’t think I needed the food but as soon as I started eating an oat bar I felt my energy levels boosted and felt ready for the decent. Luckily we met up with Matt’s group here so I threw him some chocolate before we moved off.
Coming down felt easier than getting up. It felt like there were more stretches of steps (rather than balancing on the bare ice) than on the way up but that could just have been my imagination. Then again going down icy steps, even with a rope rail, wasn’t the easiest of things as there was lots of slushy, loose
ice that made digging your crampons in difficult.
By the time we reached the bottom and sat down to take our crampons off, I was so relieved. We were on the home straight at last and I could almost taste the hot chocolate!
Unfortunately all the rain had meant the river bed had started to fill up so we had to walk higher up the side on bigger boulders which slowed us up. Once we’d got over the worst of them we all quietly tramped back over the smaller rocks until we got back to the car park. We had to wait in the pouring rain for about twenty minutes for the bus but we were already soaked so didn’t really care. As the coach arrived bringing the dry set of afternoon trekkers, we were relieved that we’d got ours out of the way already.
Back at the tour office we peeled off our wet things to reveal mostly dry clothes underneath (Matt’s trousers were drenched and my hiking boots both had splits in them so my socks hadn’t made it, but other than that we’d done quite well).
I had booked to do an afternoon
horse trek for two hours but when we arrived back at the motor park we decided to cancel it and jump into the hot spa instead. We booked it for a whole hour and took in a bottle of water and some chocolate to bring back some of our lost energy.
By the time we got out of our pool and had a few coffees in front of our fan heater, we started to feel alive again.
We couldn’t face cooking so drove into Franz Josef village and found ourselves a buzzing little restaurant and enjoyed a hearty meal and (I had) lots of wine which felt like a reward for enduring a strenuous day.
After dinner we drove back to our motor park around the corner and settled into a second night there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0233s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb